


Red loud & Sunflowers

by mistellation



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, F/M, Synesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistellation/pseuds/mistellation
Summary: i felt so warm writing this. i hope you enjoy<3





	Red loud & Sunflowers

**Author's Note:**

> i felt so warm writing this. i hope you enjoy<3

as neville wandered through the parlor, he wondered how a place full of so many loud people could be so calming to visit for him. he had always preferred the quiet and tranquil aura of the greenhouses—exceptuating the unwanted company of repotted mandrakes—and enjoyed the warm crisp of pages on the library, letting the sun bathe him from behind the glass. he was a quiet person. 

he had always been, if ‘always’ meant since everything he said took the risk to be ridiculed by some people. 

but there was something about the parlor… a different kind of tranquility. it was like snuggling up on a cozy sweater; like adding the milk to your tea and sip it by the window in the morning; like getting home after a long day and taking off your shoes. 

it felt safe. on the parlor, surrounded by loud people who only quieted down when drawing coiling dragons and cunning foxes on skin, neville felt safe. 

and then there was people who weren’t loud at all. or, actually, were a different kind of loud. 

because there were different types of loud just as there were different types of red. there was crimson red loud, pounding and vigorous, like seamus waving off a customer and immediately swifting off to smooch dean on the lips. there was wine red loud, like the elegance with which parvati sat down with her clients and talked through possibilities and ideas for their tattoos. 

and then there was ruby red loud; like luna. 

luna was like a whole different red inside the other reds. she was loud, but she hardly ever raised her voice. she was loud with the needle just like a bee was loud in its frenzy for flowers. she drew with her eyes wide open and her tongue peeking out of her frowned lips. she drew roses and chinese characters and disney references on skin with the same intensity seamus kissed dean or parvati brainstormed. 

luna was ruby red loud, and lavender soothing, and tangerine passionate and mint green beautiful. she could have been any color she had wanted to be. 

neville liked to watch her work, but as he used his excuse of visiting dean, he didn’t have as much time as he liked to watch her draw. but it was fine. a single glance of ruby red was enough to last him a month. 

and then his grandmother made him take the job on the flower shop. he liked the flower shop, really. they had more than bouquets of dead flowers; they had terrariums that couldn’t have fit in a hogwarts trunk full of succulents, they had daisies and orchids and aloe vera. they had fruit trees and herbal tea plants. the shop always smelled nice and was at nice warm temperature. 

but it wasn’t bright red. it was soft sage green, and it smelled of sunshine and soil. and it wasn’t really home if he spent all his time in there. 

so he started crossing the street on lunch breaks, a sandwich on his tupperware and his water flask, and ate his food on the tattoo parlor’s staff room. 

the first day luna said, “your flask looks sad.”

the fifth day, she drew flowers on it to cheer it up. the flowers covered most part of the white, as if the flask was the soil they had been planted on, and swirled and expanded along the cylinder. 

the tenth day she added color. neville accidentally picked it up before it was dry and smudged a sunflower with his thumb. he then melted into apologies and stutters, but luna simply reached out and pressed her thumb a few milimmiters from neville’s mark. he immediately shut  <strike> down </strike> up. the next day neville looked for the exact same flowers luna had drawn and brought her a pot with a bunch of them. 

the twentieth day, luna came to the flower shop. she wandered around the herbs section and caressed the rosemary with her fingers. the pads of her fingers had been stained with tattoo ink, but when she left it was the rosemary that had bleed green on her. that night, neville placed a small branch of rosemary under his pillow and took deep breaths until he fell asleep, and next day he made himself an omelet with rosemary for breakfast. 

on the thirtienth day, luna came to the flower shop again and stood in front of neville for a while. 

“hi luna,” he said, simply waiting while he arranged the peonies.

“you should get a flower tattooed,” she said with her not loud at all voice. her presence was ruby red loud, her personality lavender soothing, her art mint green beautiful; and her voice was sunshine warm. so, so warm on skin. it felt like napping under the sun lulled by the lilies.

neville put down the peonies. “uh… i mean, why?”

luna tilted her head like a sunflower and smiled. “it would look good on you.”

on the sixtieth day the tattoo was finished, and neville now had a small sunflower on the side of his head, right behind his ear. it attracted the sunlight on winter days, and kept him pleasantly warm. luna bandaged him carefully and looked at him with wide eyes. 

“don’t worry. it will still be there even if you can’t see it.”

neville smiled. 

_ yes _ . he crossed the street, his lunch break over.  _ it will _ . 

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked it, please leave a kudo and a comment to let me know<3  
you can come gush at me on [my tumblr](www.mistellation.tumblr.com) or check [my hp sideblog](www.bathildasbagshots.tumblr.com).


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